Geometry on The Toronto Ferry

ByElisavietta RitchieJune 12, 1992

First, the angle of the child who, braced against the slant of deck, pulls against the pull of larger hands which make a broader angle of their arms. Then the flag, upper left, oblong banner of the brave. The ferry crunches ice ahead, her brief diagonal course set across the port, and back. The shattered rhomboids, triangles of ice floes churning in our wake freeze back into a solid plane. The child strains toward the ladder to the bridge, would grab that wheel, steer our stolid trapezoidal craft straight to Spain and - smash geometry - he would prefer a brigantine.